Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare Services on Monday grilled the Director-General of the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, for “expenditure without legislative approval in 2018.”
The chairman of the Committee, Chike Okafor (APC, Imo) and a member, Nicholas Ossai (PDP, Delta), disclosed this in Abuja during the 2019 budget defence by the NAFDAC boss.
The lawmakers, after interrogation, however decided to postpone the agency’s 2019 budget defence until the NAFDAC DG had cleared herself of the “unapproved expenditure and other allegations” standing against her.
“We cannot go ahead with the 2019 appropriations for your agency until you have satisfactorily explained to this Committee why you spent money without the approval of legislature in 2018.
“This is a clear violation of Section 81 of the 1999 Constitution, which requires appropriation before spending,” Ossai told the NAFDAC DG who was accompanied to the budget hearing by her husband, Senator Sola Adeyeye.
According to the lawmakers, NAFDAC’s 2018 budget was not committed to the legislature as required by the 1999 Constitution, and thus amounted to crime against Professor Adeyeye.
In defence, the NAFDAC DG contended that she was never invited for budget defence by the Committee, adding that her decision to spend money without approval in 2018 was borne out of her resolve to help Nigerians.
But the lawmakers, who were visibly unimpressed with Adeyeye’s explanation, cited various invitation letters sent to her, which she declined, as well as series of breaches she had allegedly committed.
The Committee, therefore, adjourned the budget defence to a yet to be disclosed date, with a threat to recommend the DG for criminal prosecution.
Daily Trust recalls that Professor Adeyeye had earlier accused members of the Healthcare Services Committee of demanding for “welfare money” from her, a euphemism for bribe, when they visited her in 2017.
“This was at a time the agency was bleeding profusely for lack of funding,” the NAFDAC boss had reportedly said.
